“And you won’t tell him, will you? It’s all got too complicated to explain now.”
“Yes,” Leonie said sombrely, “I suppose it has. Anyway, I shan’t tell him.”
She wondered suddenly if she should try now to open Claire’s eyes, so far as the Assistant Surgeon was concerned. But one look at her friend’s starry eyes and smiling mouth told her that no amount of logical argument would move her. It had to be the hard way. And she could only hope that she would not lose Claire’s friendship in the process.
“Well, don’t desert me altogether, in favor of your patients,” said Claire with a laugh, and then she went off to her own cabin.
The next morning Leonie felt almost as though she were back at St. Catherine’s. Not that she had to rise quite so early—but certainly she was awake and up long before the other first-class passengers. And then, having breakfasted in the hospital quarters in company with Nurse Meech, she went along to the principal surgery in readiness for Mr. Pembridge.
He arrived punctually, greeted her pleasantly but officially, and then there followed a busy hour. For on a ship which carried a crew numbering six hundred, it was inevitable that there should be quite a number of minor injuries and ailments.
To her pleasure, Leonie found that she had by no means lost her skill in bandaging, and that she was as alert as ever about doctor’s instructions. Once or twice Mr. Pembridge had to amplify some explanation, but he did so patiently and with a friendly little smile which suggested that he was willing to make allowances on this first morning.
Leonie was really beginning to enjoy herself, when she found, rather to her disappointment and annoyance, that Mr. Pembridge was not taking the passengers’ surgery hours that morning, but that his assistant would instead.
“We take it in turns, of course—just as you and Nurse Meech will,” he explained. “And the same with evening surgery. Prescriptions, of course, are made up by Mr. Morley, and you will find that both Roberts and Plane are excellent hospital orderlies. If you need me, I am usually in my office during most of the morning, except when I am visiting the few patients we have in their own staterooms.”
“Very well, sir. Thank you.”
“Thank you, he said, and gave her a very brilliant smile. Then he got up to go, as Kingsley Stour came in.
“So our new nurse is already on duty. How’s she shaping, sir?” inquired the Assistant Surgeon with a grin, as though Leonie’s temporary appointment was all rather a joke.
“Very well, or I shouldn’t have dreamed of having her,” replied Mr. Pembridge drily. “I knew Nurse Creighton’s work already and felt sure I could rely on her.”
“That’s fine.” The other man tempered his amusement slightly with an air of appreciation. “We’re very lucky to have her assistance.”
“Very lucky,” agreed the Senior Surgeon, still in that dry tone. Then he went away, leaving Leonie to deal with his assistant as best she could.
“Sit down and relax.” Grinning again, Kingsley Stour indicated one of the really comfortable chairs in the room. But Leonie chose to sit on a surgery chair, with an air of being ready for work.
“You don’t have to give the impression of expecting an inspection by Matron at any minute,” the Assistant Surgeon told her carelessly. “Pembridge may insist on that sort of attitude, but I don’t.”
“I suppose the first patients might be here any time now,” Leonie replied coolly. “I’d rather look a little over-professional than be mistaken for a casual visitor.”
“No one’s going to mistake you for a casual visitor in that fetching cap,” he assured her.
“It’s just the same cap as the other two nurses wear,” Leonie pointed out.
“Is it? Looks quite different on you,” Kingsley Stour declared, and Leonie was feminine enough not to find that exactly displeasing.
There was silence for a moment. Then he looked full at her and said,
“What really made you decide to take this on?”
“Why, you know, surely! Mr. Pembridge told me that you were dreadfully short-handed here, after Nurse Dornley’s accident. And he himself suggested that as—”
“Oh, yes, I know all that,” Kingsley Stour assured her. “But you could have refused pleasantly and regretfully. Most people would have done.”
“But I didn’t want to refuse. I guess Mr. Pembridge knew that, and that’s probably why he asked me.”
“Which brings us back to my original question. What made you want to come down here and slog at nursing, when you might just as well be up on deck enjoying yourself?”
“I happen to like nursing—”
“Oh, come, Leonie!”
“It had better be Nurse Creighton when we’re on duty,” Leonie said coolly. “It is with Mr. Pembridge.”
““And aren’t things a little bit different for me?” inquired Kingsley Stour with a smile.
She was just going to tell him very curtly they were not when she recalled that she was supposed to find him dangerously attractive, and had planned to use the present situation to further her intention of tripping him up in his own scheming.
“I can’t go into that now,” she said. And to her great relief, their first patient arrived at that moment.
For a while there was very little chance of private conversation. But, in the quarter of an hour which elapsed between Cabin and First-class surgery, there was a breathing space, during which cold drinks were brought by one of the hospital orderlies.
“Take it easy,” said Kingsley Stour, as Leonie was about to take some prescriptions along to the dispensary. “Morley will come and fetch those himself. This isn’t St. Catherine’s, you know, even if we have got the flower of the nursing staff here.”
“Meaning me?” inquired Leonie, permitting herself a reluctant smile. But she went and stood by the porthole, looking out, so that he could not engage her in too earnest conversation.
“Meaning you, sweetheart.”
Leonie did not answer that. She was not prepared to argue every departure from professional behavior with him. And, in any case, she could hardly encourage him to lose his head about her if she insisted on being called Nurse Creighton all the time.
“I was sorry Mrs. Murdoch came in when she did.” He got up from his chair and came over and stood close behind her.
“Mrs. Murdoch?”
“Our first caller. She’s hardly a patient. She only comes to talk about her interesting symptoms to someone who can’t get away.”
“Oh—yes. I gathered that. But if she comes at all, she might as well come first and get her visit over.”
“But she came just as we’d reached a very interesting point in our conversation,” the Assistant Surgeon said. “Don’t you remember? Or are you determined to be the most obstinate and evasive little devil?”
“If you talk to me like that, I shall call you ‘sir’, and behave exactly as though you are an elderly consultant whom I hardly know,” Leonie told him, without even looking at him.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Kingsley Stour assured her, and, putting his arm round her waist, he kissed her.
“Leave me alone!” exclaimed Leonie, disliking the scene even more than she had expected.
“Don’t be silly. You know you meant me to do that. And if you were a real sport, you’d admit it and kiss me in return.”
“Then I can’t be a real sport,” she said curtly.
“Leonie—please. Why are you so obstinate?” He sounded angry and affronted suddenly and, looking at him, she saw doubt in his face, and realized that, whether she liked it or not, the moment had come for a little encouragement, rather than continued rebuff, if she wished to hold him.
So she smiled unexpectedly and said, “You choose such awkward settings for this sort of thing.”
“No setting is awkward for kissing you,” he declared, recovering himself immediately, and he leaned towards her again.
This time she made herself respond, so that though she laughed somewhat provokingly, s
he did kiss him in return, and when he held her close for a moment she did not resist.
And then suddenly—by that pricking of instinct more subtle than any sight or sound—she was aware that they were not alone, and, thrusting him from her, she turned, expecting to face the mortifying amusement of their next patient.
What she saw was far more terrifying than any such minor embarrassment. Mr. Pembridge stood in the doorway, not at all amused, and, as she stared at him in wordless dismay, he came forward into the room and said coldly,
“Do you two mind keeping that sort of thing for the upper deck? It isn’t exactly suitable for the surgery.” Kingsley Stour laughed, flushed and straightened his collar and tie unnecessarily.
“I’m afraid you came in at the wrong moment, sir,” he said, not entirely abashed.
“I’m afraid I did,” agreed the Senior Surgeon drily. “I’ll take the last hour’s surgery this morning.”
“But it’s my turn, sir, and I don’t at all mind—”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Mr. Pembridge’s tone would have cooled the room if it had not already been air-conditioned. “But I choose to take the rest of the surgery duty this morning. I’d be glad if you’d look round the wards and see if Nurse Meech has everything under control.”
“Very well, sir.”
There was nothing else the Assistant Surgeon could say. But as he left the room, he gave Leonie a smile which was meant to remind her of her passenger status and her virtual independence of Mr. Pembridge.
Leonie, however, did not feel at all like a passenger at that moment. She felt guilty and mortified and wildly anxious to defend herself—though what she could say, she could not imagine.
There was silence for a few moments, while Leonie prayed—fruitlessly—for a rush of First-class patients requiring medical or surgical attention. Then Mr. Pembridge said quietly,
“As a private passenger, you are of course at liberty to behave as you please. But, if you work for me, I’m afraid I expect your behavior to be of the standard demanded at St. Catherine’s.”
“I’m sorry.” Leonie was mortified afresh to find that her voice came out as little more than a whisper. “It wasn’t quite—my fault.”
“I’m aware that it takes two people to stage that sort of scene.” A slight, and by no means reassuring, smile touched the Senior Surgeon’s lips. “And I have no illusions about my assistant’s weakness where pretty girls are concerned. But if you stay here as my nurse, I must be able to rely on you to see that proper professional standards are maintained.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Almost anyone might have come in just now. It was fortunate that it was only I.”
“Yes, sir,” said Leonie, feeling it was not fortunate at all.
“And, in any case—” suddenly the Senior Surgeon’s manner changed completely and he said, “Look here, you silly little idiot, you know he isn’t even two per cent serious, don’t you? I’m being thoroughly unprofessional myself now—but he’s only my colleague for a month, whereas you—”
He stopped—just as he was getting to the most interesting part of the tirade, Leonie thought.
“Yes, sir?” She looked expectant, but Mr. Pembridge did not pursue the line of thought about herself.
“That young man’s devotion won’t be given for love alone, you know,” he said grimly. “There will have to be gilt-edged securities as well.”
“Yes, I know,” said Leonie, before she could stop herself.
“Well then, if he knows you are Sir James Elstone’s
secretary, travelling with—”
“But he doesn’t,” cried Leonie.
“He doesn’t?”
“No, of course not. And he mustn’t either,” she added in great alarm, suddenly realizing that Mr. Pembridge’s knowledge of her real status might upset everything, since he was so closely connected with Kingsley Stour.
For an astonished moment the Senior Surgeon said nothing. Then a look of surprised distaste came into his eyes.
“Do you mean that Stour has been led to believe you are a rich girl, travelling for pleasure?”
“Well—something like that. You see—you see—” Leonie floundered helplessly, trying to think of a way to explain herself, without disclosing either Claire’s romancing or her own obstinate intentions.
“I see perfectly well,” Mr. Pembridge said drily. “It’s quite an old trick. I hadn’t thought of you as practising it—that’s all.”
And he turned away from her with an air of casual contempt which stung her to the quick.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In all her life Leonie had never more passionately wanted to explain herself than at this moment, when she saw a look of scorn in Mr. Pembridge’s eyes.
If they had been left alone together only five minutes longer, no doubt she would have found some way of clarifying the position between herself and Kingsley Stour. She might even, if all else failed, have told Mr. Pembridge the whole truth—though she could not imagine his approving her course of action, even in Claire’s very best interests.
But, as it was, even as she struggled to find some tactful and telling phrases in which to rebuke and confound him, the First-class yielded a visitor at last— though in the shape of Renee Armand and, looking so fresh and full of vitality that it was hard to suppose that she had come as a patient.
“Oh, Simon—” She paused inside the doorway on seeing Leonie, which gave Leonie time to get over the pleasant shock of discovering that to some people Mr. Pembridge really was Simon—“I wanted to have a word with you.”
“Then please come in, if it’s a professional matter.” With a smile, Mr. Pembridge set a chair for her. “Though you look much too blooming to be in need of medical advice.”
“Oh, it’s not for myself.” She came forward into the room then and sat down. “It’s about—Nicholas.”
She stopped again, and her wide, attractive glance went once more to Leonie.
“Nurse Creighton is here in a purely professional capacity,” said Mr. Pembridge, which made Nurse Creighton feel more than ever that the scene with the Assistant Surgeon was quite inexcusable.
“But if you would prefer me to go into the other surgery, Madame Armand—” Leonie began.
“N-no. I don’t think so. It doesn’t really matter, so long as you don’t let Nicholas know that I came and spoke about him.”
“Of course not!”
“Anything said here is completely confidential,” Mr. Pembridge assured their visitor. And again Leonie had the uncomfortable feeling that he was thinking of what had happened less than ten minutes ago.
“Well, then, it’s just that I’m worried about him. I think he’s very ill. And—and someone must do something about it. I wouldn’t want him to think I—I was unduly interested, or had said anything. I can’t urge him to come and see you. So I thought, perhaps, if I told you, you could arrange to go and see him in his cabin.”
Mr. Pembridge rubbed his chin meditatively.
“It’s a bit difficult to force one’s professional services on someone, Renee.”
“Oh, but not for you! You’re such old friends. You can say you don’t feel quite satisfied about him—that you feel—”
“But I have, my dear. I have already done that.”
“You have?” The singer looked extremely startled. “Then you mean that you, too, felt anxious about him?” she said quickly.
“To a certain extent—yes.”
“But we must do something about it!”
Leonie noticed that the usually self-possessed Frenchwoman was agitated. And for the first time there was a faintly foreign intonation to her otherwise perfect English.
“What do you suggest doing, Renee?”
“I—I thought you would do something. After all, you are a doctor—you are his friend. If you think he is very ill—”
“I wouldn’t say very ill. I don’t know enough about his case to offer a snap judgment, without any sort of consultatio
n. He has undoubtedly been very ill, and my own feeling is that he is not making anything like a satisfactory recovery.”
“Then he must need some sort of treatment.”
“Medical treatment, you mean?”
“Yes, I suppose so. That’s for you, or his own doctor, to say. Don’t you think that’s what he needs?”
“I don’t know, my dear. In view of the particular injuries he received, he may need manipulation he may even need further surgical treatment. But not, I imagine, as a matter of urgency. What I would say Nicholas most needs at the moment is a purpose in life and someone to care what happens to him.”
“T-to care what happens to him?” Renee Armand faltered a little over the words. “But that isn’t exactly a health question, is it?”
“Probably—yes. Recovery from the kind of shock and injuries he received depends to quite a marked extent on the mental and emotional condition of the patient.”
“But there was never any trouble with Nicholas in that respect.” She rushed into hasty, almost resentful reassurance. “Mentally he’s almost too clear and well-balanced, and emotionally—oh, emotionally, Nicholas is cold and—and completely self-sufficient.”
“I’m glad you feel so confident about him.” Mr. Pembridge smiled and looked as though he were bringing the interview to a close.
“But I’m not! I mean—I still feel there is something to be done. Something that would help him and make him more like—like the old Nicholas.”
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